Wheatland council has agreed to give up taxes owed on a 40-acre parcel. If Mercer County commissioners and Farrell Area School Board agree to do the same, the one-time dump site could become a public green space for borough residents.

Council members have asked the commissioners and school board to join them in petitioning Mercer County Common Pleas Court to forgive the $23,455 in taxes that has accrued since 1989.

The school board is owed the largest chunk of taxes, $15,314, said Michael P. DeForest, director of the Mercer County Department of Revenue.

School Business Administrator Ronald Pendel said the district still is investigating the issue and has not decided what it wants to do.

The county is owed $4,092; the borough $4,050.

Borough officials said the county has indicated it would be willing to forgo the taxes.

"I think it would be a benefit to the borough," DeForest said, adding that no formal decision has been made. "Given the history and problems, this would be a good long-term solution."

The property is the former Taylor dump site, at the south end of Church Street, west of the Wheatland Tube plant.

Municipal and industrial wastes were dumped there from 1959 into the '70s, and the state had the site cleaned up in 1999.

The waste was consolidated on about 10 acres, and covered.

Wheatland Tube's parent company John Maneely Co. and the Taylor estate each claim the other owns the site, and the issue has not been resolved in court.

"I think both sides are willing to turn their rights over to the borough," said borough solicitor William Madden.

But neither side wants to be liable for the unpaid taxes, said Mayor Thomas Stanton.

Stanton, who has led the charge for the borough to take over ownership of the property, said he would like to plant trees and other vegetation, stabilize the river bank and clean up debris left from the 1985 tornado.

"We don't have any plans to make it a park or anything," he said. "If we could make a walking path, that would be great."

Later, the borough could make other plans for the site, Stanton said, noting that the property is next to the Wheatland-Farrell Little League field, which is on Wheatland Tube property.

You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Joe Pinchot at jpinchot@sharon-herald.com